Which universities have gone DOWN in stature over the years?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
For the UC's, you can just check a box to apply to one if you have done the UC application. That helps drive up the number of applicants. |
Anonymous
When did W&M try to become a "more Greek, sports-focused school" and less academic? The recent renovation/addition to the football stadium was the first in 90 years. The basketball arena hasn't had a major upgrade since it was constructed over 50 years ago (although one is planned). These improvements are all through private funds and not school funds. The size of Greek system hasn't really changed in many, many years. Meanwhile, the library, business school, science facilities and other academic buildings got major upgrades well before these were initiated. |
Anonymous
It's because of the incredible number of administrative positions. The amount of Deans is astounding and each makes 6 figure salary. Meanwhile students are taught by adjuncts who are paid 5k per class per year. |
Anonymous
| Everything in the middle west, especially cold weather northern states is in decline. Smart middle west 12th graders can go to places like Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss for less than in-state Big Ten. The southern universities are recruiting smart out of state kids very aggressively and it's working. |
Anonymous
"Middle west"? Back to the troll academy. |
Anonymous
False. |
Anonymous
+1 . This is hilarious. I also had no idea that I have to impress Bob from accounting in order to maintain the school's reputation. |
Anonymous
W&M literally spent $26 million+ building fraternity housing on campus less than a decade ago using university funds, not donations: https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2011/site-for-new-fraternity-housing-announced.php
BTW, Phi Beta Kappa is an academic honors fraternity, not a social fraternity. The first social fraternities were founded at Union College in NY. These houses that W&M built are for social fraternities, not academic fraternities. So ironically, despite having actual academic credibility and prestige being associated with the oldest and foremost academic fraternity in the US, W&M tried to use it to peddle a non-existent social fraternity pedigree that it never had in order to build housing for social fraternities using university funds. Every university that has fraternities have fraternity housing built and maintained by the fraternity organizations themselves through donations directly to the fraternity, not the university. Spending $26 million of university funds building a total of 187 beds is not only financial mismanagement, but also shows terrible prioritization by the administration. Each house, which is the size of a regular McMansion, cost $2.1 million+ to build, on land they already owned. At the time W&M had less than a $500m endowment, so they spent 5% value of their whole endowment in a hopeless bid to attract social fraternities, for some reason. As for the football stadium construction, this is another matter of prioritization by the university. The university itself had another half-baked plan to extend the stadium and specifically sought out past donors for that purpose: https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2016/wm-dedicates-renovated-zable-stadium.php
Competitive success in football? Why does the school care about competitive success in a school team that very few students follow competing in a league that doesn't even broadcast on TV and is actually a net negative to the school's finances? They should shut down the football program and focus on basketball, a sport that smaller colleges can actually compete in with a level of success. The main donor on that project has a major academic building named after him on campus, a building that was failing apart inside at the time of the stadium construction. You don't think that donor would prefer to use his funds towards renovating a building already named after him into a state-of-the-art facility, instead of adding seats to a stadium that is already always empty? Money is fungible, and money from willing donors should be diverted towards academic causes, not extending an already empty stadium. Also BTW, to add on to the clown show:
Yes, having a prominent sports stadium on campus reflects well on a university's status as a top academic institution. This is why schools like Harvard and MIT spend all their funds on building sports stadiums and why the Ivy League is the most prominent college sports league in the country. What are these administrators drinking? Worse, that stadium extension is an eyesore and looks extremely out of place on the campus. So yes, the school administration has doubled down on Greek Life and sports in the past decade, to the detriment of the school. No prospective student sees brand new university-built social fraternity houses along with an oversized extension on an empty sports stadium next to decrepit academic buildings and thinks that the school is in good hands and in an upward academic trajectory. |
Anonymous
An eventual outcome for any university, especially public universities that have union'd or tenured administrative staff that are extremely difficult to remove. The main function that university bureaucracies serve is to feed on the university's finances to further expand itself. |
Anonymous
Agree that this is all a little silly. These are all great schools. It just depends on the kid. The right fit is the right fit. However... The poster who mentioned Georgetown and Dartmouth. Yes. A lot of SLACs too. Sarah Lawrence in particular. I would add Wiliams and Amherst. The traditional top ones, Great schools, but not really relevant when it comes to engineering or computer science. It's the same with a lot of the ivies. Maryland is better than Yale when it comes to engineering.The University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign is better than Harvard when it comes to computer science. Georgia Tech is a better school than most of the big traditional brand schools So much of the "prestige" thing seems really antiquated. No one is going to say Princeton sucks. But generally speaking, schools in New England, Pennsylvania, and Ohio aren't regarded as favorably as they used to be, Obviously there are exceptions, MIT, Bowdoin, Colby. Very desirable. But a lot of smart kids seem to look more favorably towards the South and the West these days. Things are changing. Northeastern SLACs are generally out of favor. The University of Florida is in. IB and consulting recruitment will eventually follow. There's definitely a change going on |
Anonymous
Rice is a top STEM school, Tufts is pretty mediocre. I am surprised there are only 10 schools separating them. |
Anonymous
Not sure about your generalization of NE, Pennsylvania and Ohio schools. Case in point, MIT, Cornell, CMU attract top STEM talent and CWRU is on the rise. |
Anonymous
No, that’s not what pp meant. There are tens if not hundreds of tiny private colleges in Pa that aren’t close to as popular as they once were. |
Anonymous
NP. In what way is that false? |
Anonymous
It is not false, it is echoed throughout this thread. Colleges rising in stature are on the coasts or in the warm clime south. While colleges losing prestige frequently tend to be cold, stagnant regions, notably the middle west. In Michigan, it was just reported by the Detroit News that a dozen of their public universities have lost upwards of 40% of their students — "plummeting enrollment" fueled by brain drain. From October to April, which is about 90% of the school year, the upper middle west is so miserable and grey. With the internet and social media, teens see their peers having fun in the sun and living in bustling regions, who the heck wants to wear a parka to class all school year in a region you have to flee after graduation? Like, what's the point? Logical people go to college in a region or side of the country they see themselves beginning a career in after college. https://www.mlive.com/weather/2022/04/numbers-show-just-how-cloudy-it-has-been-in-michigan.html |